September 23, 2009

Should You Go To Seminary?

Bob Thune challenges some long-standing assumptions and suggests that we might need to consider some other avenues for theological training.

Here are some of the concerns and solutions that Bob lays out in his post...

Concerns:

Seminary pulls pastors “off the streets” for 3 or 4 years to
isolate them in a sterile academic environment. While this might be
great for paper-writing, it’s really bad for missional living.

The nature of the business means that seminaries are always
juggling the best interests of students, faculty, donors, and
accrediting agencies. These players are never in agreement, which means
that no one is ever happy.

Seminaries seek to accomplish theological training apart from
immersion in a local church. Though most require their students to be
active in a church, seminaries tend to be a breeding ground for
Monday-morning-theologians who want to critique the church rather than
serve it.

Because professors are pressured to publish and gain tenure, the
classes they teach are often little more than laboratories for their
latest projects. One seminary student in our church told me that every
one of his classes this semester uses a book written by the professor.

Seminaries have to pay the bills, which means it’s in their best
interests to keep students around as long as possible. Seminaries
continue to promote the M.Div. as the “flagship” degree – even though a
2-year M.A. with well-chosen electives is often just as good, and about
$15,000 cheaper.

Seminary graduates tend to exit with heads full of theology, but
without worshipful hearts or authentic relationships with
non-Christians. I am aware this is an over-generalization. But
unfortunately it’s an accurate one.

Because of a seminary’s need to cater to a diverse student body,
most seminaries can’t offer a truly systematic theological education.
Students end up having to piece together the fragmented bits of data
they’ve accumulated in so many haphazard, out-of-sequence courses. The
idea of a cohesive “body of learning” is all but lost in the modern
academy.

Solutions:

The primary place for pastoral training and development should be
within the local church. Good, theologically astute elders can guide
aspiring leaders through a year or two of seminary-level reading and
study without ever removing them from their church body. Rather than
paying thousands of dollars for a packaged seminary education, aspiring
leaders can get exactly the same level of reading and study (minus the
classroom interaction) for free, with the added bonus of mentorship and
community with others in their local church.

Regionally influential churches should band together to host
theological training academies, similar to what Mars Hill/Acts 29 has
begun to do with Re:Train (NOTE: Or Porterbrook Southeast, beginning in the Deep South in Fall 2010).
Cadres of a couple dozen students can fly top-notch professors in, wine
them and dine them, and pay a hefty honorarium for their labor, and
still come out way ahead of the $400 or $500 per credit hour that
seminaries charge.

Theological students should use technology to access “the best of
the best” teachers and theologians. Many seminaries offer lectures for
free through iTunes U. Others allow students to audit classes via
videoconferencing. If you want to learn systematic theology from Wayne
Grudem, church history from John Hannah, and apologetics from John
Frame, why not?

Seminaries should continue to hire and equip the best and brightest
academic minds in Christianity to do battle on the field of ideas. We need
good theologians doing high-level academic work, and seminaries provide
an important context for that. But rather than paying the bills by
lassoing directionless Bible-college grads for a 3-year M.Div., they
should focus their recruiting efforts on doctoral students, pastors who
want ongoing training, and “a la carte” students who would pay to
access the wisdom and expertise of the most talented professors in a
given field. Seminaries could cut all the “adjunct” faculty and retain
only the best and brightest thinkers.

Read the rest of the post here and fire away with questions or comments.

Comments

Thank you so much for writing this! I have felt extreme amounts of guilt and pressure for not going after my M.Div. even though I already have 32,000 in debt from Bible College. God has also given me great education within staff positions at Churches under amazing, older, wiser, men who love Christ. Thought I was alone!

Great post. One other concern is many guys, such as myself, get the call later in life when they are already working with a family and kids. I would love to go back to school, and eventually attend seminary, but at this time in my life, it just isn't an option. Prayer, immersion in the Word, reading and studying great theologians, and counsel within my local church has been my training ground. While I don't pretend to be a scholar, I have grown tremendously in my knowledge, and in my walk with the Lord. While it is still my hope that God will one day open that door for me to advance my education, I am thankful that I can still serve Him where I am, and I am still growing theologically, within my church and through my personal studies.

Thanks again for this encouraging article. Sometimes we all, including myself, get caught up in institutional education and how many initials one has behind their name. This is a great reminder that you don't necessarily need a professor and $50,000 dollars to serve God, and grow academically as you do it. Blessings...

Agreed, speaking from personal experience! Even for guys who are academically-oriented, seminary isn't the best option -- because the classes are full of guys from unaccredited Bible colleges, the teaching is undergrad-level.

The point about online education is good. Most seminary classes are lecture-based -- not discussion-based -- so it makes good sense to do the iTunes/Biblical Training/Covenant Worldwide/Porterbrook thing rather than pay 700 bucks to hear some guy regurgitate a textbook for 3 hours a week.

An obstacle to helping men develop within the local church, though, is that increasingly few men have the intellectual tools to handle texts well, look closely at an argument, and put together sermons that are both engaging and rich. At my church, me and another guy have put together a book club/discussion group for young guys who want to lead in churches. We aren't doing any theological training. Instead, we're taking classic texts and helping these guys become better readers and thinkers. After a year, we're already seeing it have guys grow more confident in their ability to learn about Scripture in the local church, rather than in the classroom.

Interesting post. I am in seminary now, but am doing it (at least initially) over the internet. Online classes are WAY different than a classroom environment. For example, one of my prof's posted three questions in the on-line class room. I think that we hit 250 responses and discussion posts in that forum. Getting REALLY deep into some theological quandries. And when you can't figure out what NT Wright is trying to say, the 22 students plus a professor can work through a lot of the questions.

Plus, I am still working in industry, still have my local friends, and still active in my church. (I'm not fresh out of college, in case you hadn't guessed.) There is a lot to be said for this approach. (The 7 years for an M.Div., not so great, but got to have it to pastor in my denomination.)

Speaking as a layperson who has been under many different pastors in my lifetime I can't disagree more. Being a pastor is a very serious profession and shouldn't be gone into lightly. There are numerous positions in a church where one can minister without a seminary degree, and we should be urging those out there who do not want to make a commitment to a seminary degree to those types of positions, not making entering the pastorate easier. Being a pastor is as serious as any other profession, even as serious as a doctor, and you don't see the AMA out there trying to make it easier to practice medicine, to become a doctor you have to go to medical school, and if you still want to be in the health profession but don't have the intellect/endurance/commitment etc. you can go become a nurse/lab-tech etc. where you can help in the hospital but not actually practice medicine. The church should be no different. I have been lucky enough in my life to sit under some great pastors and recently in having to find a new church due to a move have run across pastors that are at best sub-par. These sub-par pastors all have had one thing in common, a 2 Year "easily-acquired" degree. I study theology, greek and other biblical topics for fun in my spare time, and I expect my pastor to have more knowledge than myself and be able to feed me, and pastors should be able to speak to those who are more educated biblically and in my experience these 2 Year degrees do not prepare pastors to have their stuff together. Seminary weeds out those who God is calling to be pastors and prepares them for ministry to all groups of people and to understand every biblical topic from soteriology to eschatology. Come on, it is riduculous to say that someone can acquire everything needed for the pastorate in 2 years and that 4 years is unnecessary except for those in the academic areas of the faith, that is equating a doctor with a nurse, and we need doctors to lead our churches. I have seen the tragedy of a 2 year degree firsthand and it is embaressing.